Of an earlier generation of painters with a darker pallet than the more prominent members of the Taos Society of Artists, Julius Rolshoven never quite adapted to the Southwest’s relentless glare of light. Instead, he preferred shaded areas, both as his subject and for the space in which he worked.
The fine pastel drawing from the collection, “Taos, New Mexico,” shows Rolshoven’s mastery of this difficult medium. At first glance, the work is deceptively plain, but patience reveals the apparently simple patches of color to be assembled into a composition that soon strikes us as intensely rich.